Protests are sweeping France as anger over conditions in schools meets frustration with high living costs and a government accused of doing little to address problems facing people. About 550,000 people demonstrated nationwide on Saturday, according to the Interior Ministry. Most marched peacefully, while a small minority attacked buildings, looted shops and clashed with police, who fired tear gas and charged protesters.
Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said 1,200 people were arrested and 150 police officers were injured. Behind the confrontations lies a political crisis, fuelled by anger at deteriorating services and overstretched household budgets, and compounded by a sense that France’s political institutions offer little hope of change. Here is how school blockades became a nationwide movement – and what that means for President Emmanuel Macron.
The movement began last month in high schools in Paris’ working-class northern suburbs, where students protested against teacher shortages and poor facilities. School blockades and demonstrations later spread to cities including Bordeaux, Rennes, Nantes, Lyon, Lille and Marseille. Saturday brought together students and trade unions, alongside supporters of the “yellow vest” movement that emerged in 2018 to challenge rising living costs and economic inequality.
Emile Chabal, a professor of contemporary history at the University of Edinburgh, told Al Jazeera the demonstrations were “the logical outcome of a series of protests” stretching back to the yellow vests. That movement was driven by financial pressures and resentment at “the French presidential system”, he told Al Jazeera, alluding to a structure which often leads to the election of a centrist candidate, such as President Emmanuel Macron. Saturday combined those longstanding grievances with students’ anger at deteriorating state schools.
The yellow vests had demanded better public services. Bringing students’ grievances together with wider social demands, therefore, represented “the worst possible outcome for the French government”, Chabal said. Students’ immediate demands concern conditions in France’s lycees (public high schools), which generally educate pupils aged 15 to 18.
They want smaller classes, enough teachers, better buildings and less exhausting timetables. Their complaints also reflect broader concerns about whether the state can provide the education and opportunities young people need. But for workers, including school staff, the dispute also concerns wages and the resources available to deliver public services.
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